by Raven Dark
He might not be the Malek we knew? A lump grew in my throat. I rested my head on Z’pheer’s shoulder. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait and hope that—”
There was a loud crash from somewhere on the ship. I jerked my head up. Another crash sounded, as if glass had smashed against a wall.
Z’pheer rubbed my nape. “It’s just Raul. Stay here, I’ll go talk to him.”
“No, let me.”
“Nayna.” He shook his head.
“Please, let me. He hasn’t let you anywhere near him in days. Maybe I’ll have better luck.”
He dropped his arms and nodded. Then he cupped my face and kissed me on the forehead. “You are too good to us, alia. We got lucky. You will never know how much.”
I touched the side of his face. He’d never know how much his words meant to me. I headed for the doors but stopped in front of them when they opened and turned back to him.
“Z’pheer?”
“Yes?”
“I… Thank you.”
“For?”
“For letting me help you. For letting me care for him.”
Z’pheer’s throat worked. I wondered if he’d never heard a slave thank a master before without being ordered to do so.
“You’re welcome, little flower,” he murmured.
I crossed the ship and found Raul in the ship’s large conference room. From down the hall, through the open doors, I could see the room had been trashed. Raul paced the room like a caged tiger. Glass lay scattered across the floor, and a picture on the wall across from the door was ripped. Chairs around the table in the middle of the room were toppled.
Fuck, I hated when Raul was angry.
Raul disappeared into another part of the room. Something smashed against the wall and I heard him let out a string of alien curses, then more smashing. It sounded like he’d put his fist through a wall.
I froze, then walked away from the doors, back down the hall.
Silence fell over the room. Then…
“Malek, why did it have to be you? Why couldn’t it have been me?” Raul’s voice carried across the room.
Halting in mid-step, my hand lifted slowly to my mouth at the raw emotion in his voice. My eyes watered.
“Why?” he rasped.
The urge to comfort him washed over me, drawing me back to the doors like a magnet. At the same time, my heart pounded with nervousness that bordered on fear, unsure how he’d react when he saw me.
Screw it. I felt as if I’d made some kind of headway with these men in being allowed to help Malek. If I let myself be afraid of Raul, I’d be taking a step backward. The man hadn’t let anyone into his room in days, and other than when Malek needed him, I hadn’t seen him leave it. Even Tarku chose to hang out with me rather than his master these days.
Someone had to get him out of this funk before he destroyed more than the Order’s ship.
At the doors to the conference room, I looked in. Raul stood in front of a long window at the far left of the room. His big palm was on the glass, and he seemed to be looking out at the stars passing by the window, but I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing them.
I licked my lips and knocked on the open door.
“Go away, Z’pheer,” Raul muttered without turning from the window.
“It’s not Z’pheer.” I stepped into the room cautiously. I wouldn’t let myself be afraid of him, but you didn’t approach an angry predator without caution.
His head dropped. “Leave me be, nayna.”
Nayna. Slave. It had been days since anyone had called me that with quite that much ownership. One step backward.
I took another step in, unwilling to give up so easily.
“It is not safe to be around me right now, nayna.”
Not safe to be around him? My heart gave a nervous jolt. I put on my bravest smile and took a few more steps into the room. “I’ll take my chances.”
He made a derisive sound. His hand flattened against the windowpane, his head bent, his huge bare shoulders tense. But he also made no other move to get rid of me.
Taking another few steps, I looked at the table beside me. Jesus, it was smashed in two, the huge pieces of wood caved in.
It was probably incredibly stupid of me not to turn around and leave, but I couldn’t, and I wasn’t even sure why. Instead, I grappled for a way to get his guard down. To get him talking, or at least accept my presence.
“Raul, how long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Shit. This wasn’t going well.
“You have to eat, Raul,” I tried again. “You can’t help Malek if you’re starving to death.”
He dropped his hands and put his head back. “Why are you so stubborn?”
Well, he wasn’t telling me to get lost.
I walked forward and stopped a few paces behind him. Trying to remain unobtrusive. “It’s my one fatal flaw.” I gave what I hoped was a winning smile he would have been able to see in the window.
He snorted. I heard real humor there.
I took a big breath and stood beside him at the window. Unsure what to say, I remained silent, waiting for him to talk.
“I’m not in the mood for conversation right now, nayna,” he muttered as if he’d read my mind.
He was trying to shut me out. I shrugged. “Then we don’t have to talk,” I said gently. “I’ll just stand here with you. We’ll just…be.”
His chest stuttered on a sigh. “Just be, huh?”
“Uh huh.”
He looked at the ceiling as if thinking. Trying to work out what to do next, I thought. For the second time since I’d met him, this giant of a barbarian didn’t know what to do with me.
For a long time, he said nothing, and I wasn’t sure what was coming next. He might shut me out again. Or he might…
Raul put his palms on the glass again. At last he spoke, but his voice was so low I hardly heard him. “This is my fault, you know.”
“What is?”
“Malek,” he growled softly. “Malek is going to die, and it’s my fault.”
I closed my eyes, the pain in his voice threatening to crush me. I shook my head. Then I did something that I thought I’d never, ever do with Raul.
I set my hand gently onto his powerful back. Bending my head to him. “Raul, look at me.”
At first, his shoulders tensed. Then he lifted his head slowly until his golden eyes collided with mine.
Oh, God. There was so much pain, so much anger, so much…fear in them, I almost collapsed to the floor. I could feel the loss pounding off him. He’d lost so much already. His father, his world, the safety of his people, and now he thought he would lose his best friend. I wanted to take his pain into myself, to somehow make this right.
I pressed a little closer to him, setting my hand more firmly on his back, hoping the connection between us would somehow make him hear me.
“Raul, we don’t know what’s going to happen to Malek. Z’pheer hasn’t given up. I won’t give up. Malek is still fighting. So you can’t give up either.”
He put his head down. “It’s still my fault he’s lying in there.”
“How?”
He dropped his hands again. “It’s like my father all over again. I should have reacted faster. I should have given Laric the hammak and told him where the weapon was. If I had, Malek wouldn’t be dying.” He shook his head. “And I would not have had to kill his brother.”
“Oh, Raul, come on,” I said gently. “I said this before with your father, and I’ll say it again now. It doesn’t work that way. We always think there’s something more we could have done, but there isn’t.”
He rounded on me, jabbing a finger at his chest. “And I told you before, I could have done something.”
I flinched but refused to back down. “What could you have done? If you had given Laric the hammak, he’d be king!”
“So? I have no interest in the throne!” he snapped. “My father chose him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Raul, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“I cut off his brother’s head.”
I shuddered at the memory. “Raul.” I took his face in my hands, too desperate to consider my actions. “He was working with the Rith. You had to save your people. And as for giving him the hammak… Would you want the ruler of your entire world to be someone who works with them?”
“No!”
“Do you think Malek would want that?”
“I…” He let out a long sigh and closed his eyes.
“Raul, you know you made the right choice. It was a horrible choice, but it was the right one.”
“You know that, do you?” His voice was a rasp that had no force in it.
“Yes. We have to believe Malek will be all right. That’s all we can do. And that when he wakes up, he will understand why you did what you did.”
He heaved a sigh. Then his palm slid around my chin and his golden eyes softened. “You are too smart for your own good, Vahashatai.”
I’d have been annoyed at that statement, except for the teasing quirk of his mouth.
“Another fatal flaw.”
He snorted again. The he shook his head. “I can’t lose him, Vahashatai,” he whispered.
There was so much desperation, so much longing there, it hardly seemed to fit inside his words. The friendship he felt for Malek filled his eyes, shining as bright as a star, so bright it made my heart ache for him.
Then and there, something in the way I saw him…shifted. Suddenly, he wasn’t a brutal barbarian or a warrior of such lethal power that I didn’t know how to deal with him. He wasn’t an animal, a savage to fear. He was just a man. A man with hopes and dreams, one who had friends and family, who hurt when he lost something dear to him.
And whose heart was slowly breaking with the thought of losing his friend.
Unsure what to say, I just nodded, hoping he saw my understanding, hoping he knew I was right there with him.
“I can’t lose him,” he said again, and this time his voice shook.
I’d never heard Raul sound so uncertain. My eyes stung for him. For Malek, and for Z’pheer, who would hurt just as badly if Malek didn’t make it.
“I can’t either,” I whispered.
Raul’s hand slid around my nape.
Next thing I knew, we were in each other’s arms, clinging to each other for dear life. Raul’s arms crushed me to him, one wrapped around my neck so hard it almost hurt, the other around my waist while I clutched at his back. He put his face in the top of my hair, and I laid my head on his chest, my ear pressed to his racing heart.
Why he was letting me this close, I didn’t know, but we both needed it, so I wasn’t going to question it.
“You crazy, stupid girl.”
I froze. The words held no force, but the last time he’d called me that…
He shook his head into my hair. “Don’t think I didn’t see what you did with that weapon when Laric had you.” His arms tightened around me. “You saved my life, Vahashatai.”
Gulp. “Um.”
I felt his smile in my hair. “You changed everything, little nayna.
“I did?” Where the heck was this going? I wasn’t sure whether to smile or panic. “Raul, with you it’s kinda hard to tell. Are you mad?”
His chest shook on a low, soft laugh. “Rosht. No.” He cupped my face in his hands and tipped it up until I was looking into his eyes.
I stared up at him. His eyes were filled with an emotion I’d never seen before. They were soft and warm and tender. And filled with—
“Thank you, Vahashatai.”
Oh, God. Xandari men didn’t thank slaves, and Raul definitely didn’t. I’d seen how hard it was for him to say it after I’d helped Tarku with the glass in his paw. He couldn’t even bring himself to say it then. That he said it now changed everything between us. The words felt like a gift, as if, for that moment, he saw me as more than a slave. As more than his property.
The light in his eyes told me he remembered what I’d said that day with Tarku.
My heart soared with joy. I groaned and clutched him, pressing my head into his warm chest, half chuckling, half crying.
His hands stilled on my back. “What? Did I say it wrong?”
“No!” I nuzzled his chest. “No. It was perfect. It was just perfect, spaceman.”
He hummed in amusement. Then his fingers captured my chin, and suddenly his lips were all over mine.
A wave of warmth spread all the way to my toes. He wasn’t kissing me like a master, a barbarian who took what he wanted without a care for my feelings on the matter. He was just a man needing to be held, needing the closeness of a woman. Needing me.
I melted into him, kissing him back. He groaned, and his lips devoured mine. It felt as if he were pouring all his pain, all his grief into me, and I took it all.
We were both utterly lost, and for this moment, I felt like I was part of him. One with him.
When he finally broke this kiss, I was panting, and my nails were digging at his back. He didn’t seem to care. His fingers were deep in my hair, and his chest was heaving hard against mine. I nuzzled my face into his chest again.
I couldn’t get close enough to him.
For a second, he just held me in silence. Then a soft, broken laugh left him. “How did this happen?”
“Huh?” Tears splashed my cheeks.
He inhaled deeply. “This whole world is such a mess.”
We weren’t on Xandar, but I knew that’s what he meant.
“How are you the only thing in my life that makes any sense, hmm?”
I chuckled and held him tighter. “I feel like that too. About all three of you.”
He sighed and brought my hand to his lips, kissing each finger. Then he kissed the top of my head.
“Come to my bed, Vahashatai.” He lifted my head again until my eyes were on his.
I bit my lip. “Hold on… Raul, can I ask you something?”
“Hmm.” He ran his fingers up and down the middle of my back.
“Promise you’ll tell me?”
He raised a brow, concern filling his gaze at the earnestness in my tone, I thought. “What is it?”
I took a chance. “What does the word Vahashatai mean?”
He dropped his head back and his shoulders shook with laughter.
“Raul. Okay, it’s bad, isn’t it? It’s an insult.”
The smile slid off his face, replaced with a serious look. He ran his fingers over my lips.
“The Xandari once believed in many gods and goddesses. One such goddess was said to be a woman of fantastic, unrivaled beauty. She had a tongue of fire.” He drew his fingers around the shape of my face. “She was the symbol of beauty and perfection. Her name was Vahashatai.”
My eyes widened. “Wait a minute. All this time, I thought it was an insult, and all along, you were calling me Aphrodite?”
“If Aphrodite is your Goddess of Beauty on your world, then yes.”
I swatted his chest hard. “Uh! You. This whole time… You are an ass, and I hate you.”
He laughed and swatted my ass lightly. Then his fingers traced my lips again. “Now, come to bed with me,” he rasped tenderly.
I blinked at him, hardly able to process the warmth in his tone, so unlike him. “Shouldn’t you just be putting me over your shoulder and throwing me there?”
He shook his head. “Don’t come because I ordered you to. I want you there because you want to be there.”
My eyes slid closed, my heart soaring high. When I opened my eyes, they blurred with tears. “Raul, I…I don’t know what to say.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. Oh fuck, I wanted to. My whole body was coiling with longing. It was just that no words seemed adequate for what he was giving me now. He was giving me the choice, and it meant more than he’d ever know.
I slid my palms over the powerful muscles of his warm chest. “You really—”
“Raul!”
Z’pheer’s footsteps sounded in the hall, and I cut off, looking over my shoulder at the doors. “It’s Malek…he’s awake,” Z’pheer shouted into the conference room, Tarku behind him.
Raul and I hurried toward the infirmary.
33
Kan Jun Hada
As soon as Raul and I walked into the infirmary, Malek opened his eyes groggily. Z’pheer had him sitting up in the bed, propped up on pillows. His face was still pale, but he wasn’t sweating anymore, and his breathing looked normal. His purple eyes found mine, bright and clear. I lowered my eyes, hoping he didn’t see the relief that spread through me.
So much had happened between us, I felt suddenly awkward around him. New emotions I felt for him, ones he’d never seen in me, welled up at seeing him recovered, and I wasn’t sure how to handle them. Or how he would handle them if he knew.
Malek’s eyes lingered on me for a second, but I couldn’t read the expression in them before they flicked up to Raul at my side.
“How much trouble have you been getting yourself into while I’ve been out, Hadu Raul?” His throaty voice sounded irritated, but the twinkle in his eyes said he was teasing his charge.
“Don’t call me that.” The words lacked force and Raul was smiling. “How do you feel?”
“Like a giant uja-uja ate me and threw me up.” Malek’s eyes closed briefly, already exhausted, I’d bet.
“Well, that makes sense, considering,” Z’pheer said, standing at his other side. “You’ve been out for four days.” He checked Malek’s shoulder where the Rith bite was. The dressing was clean and still packed with herbal remedies that smelled like rosemary.
“So what’s the prognosis, Z’pheer?” Raul asked. He studied the patient intently, almost as if he didn’t believe that his friend was awake. I didn’t blame him. We’d come too close to losing him.
Z’pheer checked him over with his doctor’s tools. “He will need lots of rest for at least week. No getting out of this bed for two days, after that, very light exercise until I say otherwise.”